The present invention relates to an improved on-line thermoforming machine.
The field of the invention is that of industrial machines for making, for example, domestic refrigerators cells and doors, bag casings or shells, as well as other hydrosanitary and the like articles made starting from a thermoformed sheet-like plastic material.
Conventional on-line thermoforming machines, of the type the present invention relates to, substantially comprise a loading station for loading a sheet-like plastic material (in the form of a plate or a coiled sheet), a heating station for heating the plastic material to its thermoforming temperature, a thermoforming-molding station, as well as a thermoformed material unloading station.
More specifically, the heating stations used in prior thermoforming machines conventionally include a plurality of heating ovens, which can be driven from a working position, inside the machine construction, to a rest or inoperative position, arranged laterally outside of said machine.
Because of the above disclosed construction, prior thermoforming machines have a lateral size which substantially corresponds to the size of the heating ovens and, accordingly, to the width of the on-line machine. Thus, with the heating ovens in their deactuated or off condition, said machine will have a width size substantially corresponding to two times the width of the machine in its operating or working condition.
Because of the above mentioned size, prior on-line thermoforming machines provide to exploit the spaces on the sides of said machines for arranging therein, for example, double loaders for loading the plate or sheet like plastics material, as well as for arranging control centers and the like. Accordingly, the overall construction of the machine is rigidly related to the position of the machine operator (either leftward or rightward with respect to said machine), and this without any possibilities of modifying the original construction and arrangement of the machine and related apparatus.
Thus, said prior thermoforming machines have the drawback that, for transportation purposes, they must be disassembled in several parts of less size, which would involve frequent errors in the reassembling operations, in addition to great labour costs and times for disassembling and assembling again said machines.